One Good Deed (archer, #1)

Aloysius Archer, a World War II veteran not yet 30, steps off a prison bus after earning early release from Carderock Prison on parole. He was convicted for allegedly stealing a car belonging to a small-town mayor, though the mayor's daughter had taken the car voluntarily and lied about Archer under her father's pressure. Assigned to serve three years of parole in Poca City, a growing post-war town in a drought-stricken region, Archer checks into the Derby Hotel with little money and a long list of restrictions, including prohibitions on bars, alcohol, and "loose" women.

Ignoring these rules, Archer finds the Cat's Meow bar, where he meets Hank Pittleman, a wealthy older businessman who treats his young companion, Jackie, roughly. Pittleman offers Archer $100 to retrieve a 1947 Cadillac from Lucas Tuttle, a farmer who defaulted on a $5,000 loan. Archer negotiates a $40 advance and accepts.

The next morning, Archer meets his parole officer, Ernestine Crabtree, a stern, attractive woman who hides her looks behind shell glasses and a severe bun. He finds a threatening note slipped under her office door and pockets it. Outside, he encounters Dickie Dill, a dangerous former Carderock inmate who works at the local slaughterhouse and whom Archer suspects may have written the note.

Archer approaches Tuttle directly rather than sneaking onto his farm. Tuttle, a white-haired farmer, answers the door with a shotgun but is impressed by Archer's honesty. He confirms the debt but refuses to pay as long as Pittleman keeps his daughter Jackie away from him. Tuttle's secretary, Desiree Lankford, shows Archer a photo of Tuttle's late wife Isabel, a Brazilian woman who died in what Desiree calls "a horrible accident."

At Pittleman's estate, Archer meets Malcolm Draper, Pittleman's business manager, and reports Tuttle's refusal. Pittleman orders Archer to take the Cadillac by force. That evening, Jackie seeks Archer out and reveals she holds a psychology degree and deliberately plays a girlish role because Pittleman expects it. When Archer goes to Tuttle's farm that night, he discovers the Cadillac has been burned to a charred shell, destroying the collateral and ending his assignment.

Events accelerate when Pittleman, drunk, slaps Jackie. Archer intervenes, and he and Jackie carry Pittleman to his hotel room. Jackie and Archer sleep together, and she explains the arrangement governing her life: Pittleman provides a house and car; she serves as his companion; and his wife, Marjorie Pittleman, keeps her home and social standing. The next morning, Archer finds Pittleman's door ajar and discovers the man dead, his throat slashed with his own switchblade. Archer takes the promissory note from the body and touches the doorknob on his way out.

State police Detective Lieutenant Irving Shaw, a decorated former military pilot, takes over the case. Fingerprints on the doorknob include Archer's, and Shaw warns him not to leave town. Broke and evicted, Archer turns to Crabtree, who arranges a slaughterhouse job and offers him a wall bed in her living room. Shaw uncovers that Pittleman was dying of an inoperable brain tumor, was drowning in gambling debts, and had a fraudulent $500,000 life insurance policy naming Marjorie as beneficiary. Shaw begins paying Archer as an informal investigator, and the two develop mutual respect rooted in their shared military service.

Jackie agrees to meet her father. Archer drives her car to Tuttle's farm and negotiates: Tuttle will pay the full debt plus a commission if Jackie agrees to see him. Tuttle opens a massive safe revealing cash, gold bars, and stock certificates from oil recently discovered on his land. He pays Archer $300 and the full debt, which Archer gives to Jackie to deliver to Marjorie.

Shaw wakes Archer before dawn: Tuttle has been shot dead and his safe emptied. Gold residue in the trunk of Jackie's car, which Archer drove to the farm, makes him the prime suspect. Archer is arrested and charged with Tuttle's murder, though Shaw privately believes him innocent and arranges $200 bail.

Investigating alone, Archer learns from the bartender at the Cat's Meow that Crabtree and Jackie are close friends who regularly socialized at the bar, contradicting their pretense of being strangers. Both women vanish, their belongings cleared out. Archer finds mud on Jackie's car and Crabtree's perfume inside, indicating the car was driven the night of Tuttle's murder.

At Tuttle's home, Archer discovers a Dictaphone voice recording of Tuttle dictating plans for Jackie's return and a letter disinheriting her. Hidden inside Tuttle's shotgun barrel, he finds a letter accusing Jackie of murdering Isabel. Behind a plant, he finds a photo of Tuttle and Draper together, confirming Draper was secretly Tuttle's agent inside Pittleman's businesses, and a letter from Isabel revealing Tuttle's spousal abuse. At Pittleman's warehouse, Archer finds a shipping crate containing the safe's contents, addressed to São Paulo, Brazil, along with a contract showing Tuttle swindled Marjorie out of Pittleman's businesses.

Archer and Shaw discover Sid Duckett, Pittleman's truck driver, bludgeoned to death at the slaughterhouse. Sensing Jackie is in danger, they race to her house and find Dill standing over her bed with a knife and Draper also present. In the violent confrontation, Shaw is wounded, and Archer fatally stabs Dill. Shaw's wound later causes him to collapse from blood loss; he is hospitalized in critical condition.

The critical breakthrough comes when Archer lets the Dictaphone run past where he previously stopped. He hears Marjorie confronting Tuttle in his office: Tuttle gleefully confesses to arranging Pittleman's murder and Duckett's death, and Marjorie admits she ordered the attack on Jackie. A gunshot rings out, followed by Marjorie declaring satisfaction at having killed Tuttle.

At trial, Archer represents himself and methodically dismantles the prosecution's case. He introduces the photo proving Draper was Tuttle's saboteur. Jackie, who returns to testify after receiving Archer's letter, tearfully confirms she witnessed her father push her mother to her death and was threatened into silence. When Archer plays the Dictaphone recording, Marjorie's own words convict her.

Archer is acquitted. Marjorie faces life in prison. Shaw recovers and reveals that Crabtree was raped by three men her father then killed; he went to the electric chair rather than expose her trauma in court. Archer's parole is terminated, and Poca City compensates him $2,000.

Archer sails to São Paulo, where he finds Jackie and Ernestine living together in a small house that belonged to Isabel's family. He presents each with a cashier's check representing her share of the safe's contents, which he had hidden under the burned-out Cadillac. Archer explains that his primary goal at trial was not his own freedom but ensuring the district attorney would never prosecute Jackie for Isabel's death. Jackie admits she returned to testify because she could not leave him to fight alone. Archer takes both women by the arm, and they walk out together into the sunshine.